Being Light

This last week a very bright, articulate and sensitive man killed himself.  Two days before he took this action he sat in the our little church sanctuary and was part of our fellowship.  And yet he walked out, and ultimately felt so empty, so sad, so hopeless, that he took his life.

We try to preach good news.  We try to give people hope.  We try to be the “light”.  But how does that work?  What would it have meant to be light for this hurting man?

In the church we talk a  lot  about  light.  Jesus is the light!  We are the light.  We as Christians are to be people who make a difference in the world - who share the love of God  - who make the sacred present in a very secular world.

But there is a problem.  The first problem is that for all its “talk” about being light, sharing the good news, being a presence in the world, the church does a lousy job of it.   About 10 years ago a sociologist did a survey where he asked people about their behaviors and attitudes.  In the demographic component he determined whether people classified themselves as Christian or non-Christian, and then compared the results.  His findings were interesting.  Let’s look for example at behaviors.  There were 25 behaviors explored.  For example, "Gave money to a homeless person or poor person, in past year"   Of the Christians, 24% had done so.  Among the non-Christians?  34%   "Attended a community meeting on local issue, in past year"  Christians - 37%; Non-Christians - 42%.  The behavior of Christians often cannot be differentiate for that of non- Christians.  Where’s the light?

The other problem is that even though Christians are supposedly working hard to “be light” they aren’t making a very good impression.  In another study done in 2007 young people ranked the attributes of Christians as they perceived them.   Nine of the 12 most common attributes they named were negative ones. According to the study, "Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%)."  And this wasn't just ignorance talking. The youth interviewed had significant contact with Christians.  They had attended churches, were connected with Christians.  So this is the “image” of the sacred we project?

How do we function as light in this world?  In part it is how we act.  We must be kind.  We must listen.  We must act in caring ways.  But the reality is that it is probably more about who we are as people.  Our acts come from deep inside.  In Luke, after telling us to put the “lamp” (Jesus) where people can see it, Jesus says these words (Luke 11:34-41).  “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you…  Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside [the dish] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.   

We cannot put on a mask of piety, and think we are being the light of the world.

We cannot be pious and judgmental, and think we are being the light

We cannot hide behind words, behind engagement in the church, and think we are being the light

No,  being a lamp, being light is a matter of letting people see us… No pretense!  No hypocrisy…  It is letting people look into the center of who we are. 

And it is being clear, that this person (me) - who is good and bad, strong and weak, hopeful and hopeless – that this person is Christ’s person.  Loved by God.  Forgiven by God.  Empowered by God.  A flawed vessel bearing the beauty of the creator. 

Dallas Willard once wrote  “The positive characterization of the kingdom attitude is agape love… Jesus calls us to him to impart himself to us.  He does not call us to do what he did, but to be who he was, permeated with love.  Then the doing of what he said and did becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.”  We are to be people permeated by God’s love.  That is what our whole self is to be about.  It does not make us perfect, or without flaw.  But it makes us people who have an impact.

And when people can look at us, and see this authentic self, permeated with love…. Well there is an important message here isn’t there?  If Christ can love us – as we are ???  The real us? Well then there can be no doubt, God also loves them.

So lets get back to that original idea of being light

We now know for sure what it is it not….It is not mere words… sharing formulas, standard phrases

It putting forth a “holy exterior”

It is interfacing with others in a unique way.  It is seeing people with the eyes of grace

It is helping them to see themselves through the eyes of grace.

It is also allowing people to see us

It is ultimately connecting with them at the level of the soul

It is building a  bridge of love

A relational bridge

Across which the love, the grace, the forgiveness of God can cross. . .   To heal, to empower

It is letting the real Christ

Who exists, who lives, who is present,  in the real us…

Shine into the real world, the real darkness

Corey my friend.  Rest in peace

Christ in Others

I have always considered myself a relatively caring person.  I mean really! I have been a minister, an EMT, a disaster relief worker, a counselor.  Almost everything I have ever done has been service oriented.

I come by this honestly.  Service to others, often costly service, has been a hallmark of my family of origin.  My grandfather and grandmother were Mennonite missionaries to the Cheyenne tribe in Montana and served them with humility and compassion.  Aunts and Uncles served as doctors and minister, caring for others, serving their communities in many ways.  Cousins have worked tirelessly for non-profits, seeking to better the lives of those whom God has placed in their path.  It is the Kliewer way.

But recently while reading Brennan Manning's book The Wisdom of Tenderness I was challenged to look at myself again.  Manning points out how, in many places, the Bible sends us a message that is somewhat different from what we might expect.  In John 13 (love on another as I have loved you), I John 4:11 (Since God loved us so much, we should love one another), and Matthew 22 (love God and love your neighbor), we are challenged, as our response to God's love, to love those around us. 

We might expect to be  told to respond to God's love by loving God in return.  Not to mention worship God and obey God.  But no, we are told to love those around us.  No, not just to love those around us, but to love everyone around us.  In the parable of the great judgement in Matthew 25 we have that incredible story where people are judged based upon whether they responded in love to the hungry, thirsty, naked Jesus.  When the people questioned when they had ever seen Jesus in need, and responded to him, Jesus answer, "when you did this for the least of these, you did it to me."

This reminds us of a powerful fact.  God, is all those we  meet.  All.  Sometimes, Manning reminds us, "he's buried there, sometimes he's bound hand and foot there, but he's there."  That means that when we love "the least of these" we love God.  Perhaps the words of the Bible aren't as strange as we think.  

The point is clear.  We are surrounded by people who are hungry, thirsty and naked, literally.  Those who are homeless, in poverty, afflicted by mental illness and more.  We are also surrounded by people who are hungry, thirsty and naked in other ways as well.  Hungry for love and understanding, thirsty for affirmation and respect, naked in their loneliness, in the harsh light of bad decisions.

We are to love all these.  Not just the one's who are easy to love.  Not just the one's who are rewarding to love.  But also those who are hard to  love.   Those who don't respond.  Those who hurt and wound us.  Those who ignore us.  Those whom society judges and reject.  We are too love them all.

I have come to realize that all too often my love is selective.  I love those who are lovable.  I love those I am "paid" to love.  I love people when others notice, and give me credit.  But there are too many I don't love.  

May God give  me grace.  May I so let God love me that I am permeated with God's love, filled to such a degree that all I say and do will be an expression of who I am in Christ.  I am a long way from being  in  that place. May the journey begin.

The Blessing of Complexity

It hit me the other day, as I was reviewing a thematic bible study called Kerygma, that the concept of God in the Bible is anything but static.  In fact what hit me is an odd paradox.  That the more the people got to know God, the less they thought they knew God.  In short, the more confusing and bewildering God and God's ways became.

In the beginning it was so easy.  Be good, prosper.  Be bad, suffer.  God is on your side, you win.  God isn't on your side?  You lose. Faith was all a matter of nice little formulas.  A + B = C.  But the problem was that the formula's didn't work. at least not all the time.  Evil Kings prospered and Good Kings got killed by the enemy.  Bad things happened to good people.  It got confusing!  Just ask Job!  And every time people thought they had it figured out, something happened to make it abundantly clear that they did not.

Alas!  And so confusing!  Anger!  Frustration!  All those things that occur when we don't "get it" surface in the pages of scripture.  It is interesting however.  The more we realize that we can't figure it all out, that we can't put God in a box, or define God with a formula, the bigger God gets.

Or maybe it is better to say the more we understand how big God is. As Brennan Manning says, "the more complex and emotional the image of God becomes in the Bible the bigger He grows, and the more we approach the mystery of His indefinability."

There are times when I wished the formulas worked.  That A + B always equaled C.  When a really good guy (Go with God Mikey O'Conner) dies of cancer, when an oil well explodes and pollutes an ocean, when crackpots get to pretend the nonsense they spout is really news (Glen and Sean), when the rich get their way and the poor get poorer, when a really nice person is afflicted with mental illness.  I wish it worked the way I think it should  -  God?  Why don't you make it so?!

But in the end I am rather glad I don't get my way.  I would be toast!  And in the end, I am glad that there is one thing clear about God.  God loves us.  God gave us the most powerful image possible, the cross, to make sure we understand one unalterable truth.  That we are loved with a ferocious love.  A love that forgives and heals.  A love that allows us to be open, fearless, giving and forgiving ourselves.

I have to remember that critical fact about God.  Yes dear British Petroleum Executives.  Yes Sean and Glen.  Yes members of House and Senate.  Yes, all of you.  God's love is for you as well as me.  No more, no less.  We are all loved.  Saint, sinners, ministers, hookers, rich poor, oil executive, environmentalist... we are all loved by God.  The nature of God's love is outrageous.  Couldn't God arrange to have a little more discretion?  More dignity?

No.  Thank God!

Forgive me God when I struggle to accept your inexplicable, embarrassing love, and for those many times when I do not offer that same love to others. 

Message

I ran across a quote the other day.  I may not have it quite right, and I don't remember who said it, but its essence stayed with me, rattling around in my skull, and resurfacing often enough that I started thinking more about it.

Essentially it went like this.  "Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message."

This reminds me that what must shape my faith, shape my beliefs, shape my message, shape my attitudes and behaviors, must be my experience of Christ's love.  That love that will not let me go. It is that experience that changes everything.  It is not the dogma, the words.  Indeed if I focus on the dogma I find myself being pulled into ways of being I don't like.  Sometimes I find myself being judgmental.  "Well if they were REALLY Christian they would (or wouldn't ) support health care reform."  I find myself being judgmental of those who are being judgmental.  "Those people are hateful and I hate people like that."

Focusing on dogma, on the oughts, and shoulds and musts of faith leaves me feeling unsettled, insecure, and frankly a little down.  But focusing on my experience of Christ's love makes a huge difference. To be loved the way Christ loves - with a love that led to the cross, to death.  What a love!  When I think about it, I am stunned.  Christ doing the unspeakable, going the way of death, for me.  Me!

That love frees me.  It frees me from wallowing in shame, remorse, self hatred and guilt.  It frees me from getting locked in to self-destructive ways.  It frees me to be open to God's love and compassion.  Yes, we can block even God's love.  When I focus on the "words" of faith I end up trapped in low spiritual self-esteem.

But when I focus on the experience of Christ's, and ultimately God's love?  Then I can accept God's acceptance of me.  And I am free to be open.  Free to risk.  Free to love others.  I don't have to live and act in fear.  And it is in that moment that I really have a message.